


A Long Way from Colorado City

by chucks_prophet



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Teachers, Closeted Dean Winchester, Coming Out, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Flashbacks, Gym Teacher Dean Winchester, History Teacher Castiel (Supernatural), M/M, Sex Education, Teacher Castiel (Supernatural), Teacher Sam Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-12
Updated: 2020-12-12
Packaged: 2021-03-10 16:36:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28030275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chucks_prophet/pseuds/chucks_prophet
Summary: Castiel nods once before he’s taking off his glasses and setting them on his desk behind him. “I mean, I’m happy to inform you; safe sex is a passion of mine. But that’s not the only reason you’re here, Dean, is it?”Dean blinks a few times, matching the sudden flutter in his chest. “I—what?”Castiel offers a smile then, but it’s gentle. “Dean, you can talk to me about anything. Whatever you’re comfortable with. I just want you to leave here tonight feeling a little less heavy.”
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 14
Kudos: 165





	A Long Way from Colorado City

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! I'm super excited to post this because in my eight years of writing fan fic, I can say with confidence that this one is one of - if not my favorite fic I've written. (I've literally barely slept - what you'd call a Hunter's Sleep - because of how excited I was to read over it again and post it.) I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it. <3
> 
> Thank you to one of my best friends, Aspen, for encouraging me to continue this fic, and ralsbecket, for supporting me and my writing for all those eight years. <3
> 
> Edit: I've just learned the term Gay Straight Alliance to describe LGBTQ+ clubs has been updated in some states across the U.S to Gay Sexuality Alliance. I'm intentionally keeping Gay Straight Alliance in here since this fic takes place in small town Kansas. Plus, there are literally no GSAs in any high schools in the entire state, according to a map I found. So all things considered, I figure they'd be more outdated and any GSA advisor would have to concede to the school board to keeping Straight in there to make it seem "inclusive" to heteronormativity or whatever dumb ass thing I'm sure teachers face every day.

_It’s like sipping good wine; new flavors still dance on his tongue long after he's swallowed the kiss. He must've licked his lips dozens of times and traced the path Lee took from the seam of his lips to the tent in his jeans, where his finger turned into a fist._

_But he's young and inexperienced with alcohol. He's not familiar with the residual burn in his throat. He mistakes it for something bad, something immoral, despite the high it gives him. He shelves it behind endless bottles of rosé and doesn't open it again until—_

"Coach Winchester?"

Dean blinks and he's back in the auditorium with a couple dozen junior high students. "Yeah," he says, startling when he shifts and scuffs his red and white tennis shoes on the linoleum tile. "Yeah, um... that's a-uh, that’s a good question. I'll have to get back to you on that, Claire."

Claire rattles the empty row in front of her with her comically oversized combat boots. "You're the adult," she snaps, folding her arms over her chest, "aren't you supposed to know these things?"

Half the class was staring at their phones—probably furiously texting an ambulance for Dean's worsening asphyxia. Now he has their full attention.

"What's the matter, Claire?" Krissy Chambers teases from the back of the bleachers, "Can't please your girlfriend?"

"You know what, Krissy, suck my—"

"Alright, enough," Dean intersects. "Look, Claire, I said I'll get back to you, okay?"

Claire heaves a dramatic sigh.

"Alright, enough of that for today," he announces, flipping the chalkboard over. "Krissy, Claire, five laps. Everyone else, grab a rubber ball and try not to aim for anyone's faces this time.”

Krissy and Claire jump up at the same time. 

"What?! That's not—”

Claire's cut short by Dean's whistle. “Wanna try that again?"

"But I—”

Another whistle. If he's being honest, he kind of gets a high off it.

Once the kids are onto their next period, Dean plops down on the lowest level of the bleachers. He turns the rubber ball in his hands over a few times, tracing his fingers over the checkered grooves. _Hands on his face, he traces the divot where Lee’s cheekbones end that widens when his mouth parts, pliant to Dean's ministrations._

“Whoa, nice to see you too, asshat.”

Dean snaps his head up to see his brother clutching the ball over his chest. “Shit, sorry,” he atones, shaking his head, “I must’ve checked out I guess. What’re you doing here, isn’t it your lunch?”

“I forgot my salad at home,” Sam admits as he takes a seat next to him, “but it’s okay. I should probably be fasting anyway if I wanna get in shape for—you don’t care.”

Dean throws his arms up in defeat. “You got me.”

Sam laughs, setting the ball on the ground before turning back to Dean. “Alright, what’s going on?”

Dean faces Sam with a practiced stoicism. “What do you mean?”

“You look like Auguste Rodin’s inspiration for _The Poet.”_

"I don’t know what that means, but it sounds French, and I’m happy to be a French girl,” he retorts. Sam, as usual, pays no mind to Dean’s comment. “One of the kids asked about gay sex.” He’s surprised the words grace his lips so easy. 

“And?” Sam presses, unfazed, “You're an adult, tell them."

"What?! Are you kidding?" Dean scoffs, "I don't even know where to start. It's not like you guys gave me much preparation on the whole teaching a crash course in sex ed thing. If the Keurig hadn't broken that day, I would've beat everyone at 'Nose Goes'. I have reflexes like a cat."

"You know, there's a new GSA on campus,” Sam offers. “Some of my kids were passing out flyers before the winter play. Novak's the advisor. Maybe you can ask him for some pamphlets or something."

Dean’s heart smacks against his ribcage, sending the residual vibration to his fingers. Novak, as in Castiel Novak—the eighth grade World History teacher. There shouldn’t be anything intimidating about a guy who wears a rainbow bowtie over a sleeveless black tuxedo partially obscured by a beige blazer. But his bootcut jeans over brown leather boots frame his legs and ass in such a way that make Dean's heart do that thing it just did, suddenly making him self-conscious in his knee-high socks and jean shorts whenever he's around. 

Sometimes Castiel lingers when he drops off his fifth period on Tuesdays and Thursdays, because it’s his last class for those days. He makes mostly small talk—discussing the unruly parking situation, the yearly dust storm rolling in from Emporia, the rumored wage cut for “non-essential” instructors, the dreaded end of the year parent-teacher conference (that Dean is exempt from, since he’s apparently considered “non-essential”, thank you very much). 

Even if he feels like he’s running a marathon when he talks to Castiel, he’s good company. Always smiling and decked out in bright pins and bowties despite running the risk of being deemed “unprofessional”. He's the perfect person to take on GSA. 

“GSA, that’s uh, Great Seal Army?” Dean feigns. “Great State of Ala—” 

“Gay Straight Alliance,” Sam says, rolling his eyes, “it’s the new LGBTQ club on campus. My kids told me his kid—Jack from your second period—came out as non-binary a few months ago. That kind of sparked the idea for the whole thing. The board was really against it at first. Lots of parents wrote in, it was a whole thing.”

“Jesus, you’d think he was hosting a satanic sacrifice every week.” 

“Yeah,” Sam scoffs as a text comes through. Not long after, he pulls out his phone from his slacks and types furiously. 

Dean raises his eyebrows. “Hot date or something?”

“Or something,” Sam emphasizes, only briefly breaking contact with his screen. “Eileen wants to meet for lunch at Giovanni’s.”

“Eileen?” Dean repeats, a slow smile spreading across his face, even going as far as to wrinkle the crow’s feet around his emerald eyes, “The new ASL interpreter for your fourth period?”

Sam shakes his head, but continues typing. “It’s not like that.”

“Oh really?” Dean challenges, “Look at me, then.”

Sam looks up again, angling his head to look at Dean through a pointed gaze. That is, until another text comes through.

“You son of a bitch,” Dean chuckles, clapping Sam’s shoulder. “Have fun. But not _too_ much fun—you still have two more periods to teach and the collar on that egg white button-up ain’t gonna be enough to cover a hickey. Or multiple.”

Sam shoots a quick text back before stowing his phone back in his pocket. “Look,” he says, “think about what I said, okay? I’m sure Castiel will be a big help.”

There’s something about the way his little brother’s hazel eyes are raking in his face and the grimace that flashes across his own that makes Dean think he’s talking about more than helpful infographs on the male g-spot and dental dams. Dean’s suspected Sam’s known for a while. It’s the subtle things, like the wince when their dad would comment how Iolaus from Young Hercules seemed “a little fruity”, the Queer Studies elective he took at Stanford, and the time he texted Dean during morning prep five years ago in June, asking if he’d heard about the new Supreme Court ruling.

Nonetheless, it makes Dean retract his hand, replacing Sam’s shoulder with his own fingers, imprinting crescents into his palm. 

“Go,” Dean urges, ignoring Sam’s statement, “before _I_ show up at Giovanni’s. You know I love their meatball sub. And bring me back a slice of their pecan pie.”

🌈

Dean finds Castiel in his classroom after school at his desk. It’s honestly a funny sight, just a head of disheveled brown hair and a furrowed forehead bobbing among a sea of paper mache globes. He knocks softly, as not to startle him.

Castiel pushes out his rolling chair. “Dean?” he says, throwing his head back in surprise before glancing back over at his desk. “I didn’t expect you. I-um, sorry about the mess. Finals week.”

“Ah,” Dean replies, “I always forget about finals, honestly. After having them run laps every other day, you kind of just expect the kids know how to do it.” He gestures with his head to the clutter. “I didn’t know you taught Geography too.” 

Castiel nods before catching onto Dean’s implication. “Oh, uh, no, I don’t—it’s actually something I came up with myself,” he says, picking up one globe. “I asked my students to label and pick 10 countries or continents and write a paragraph about one thing they like about their culture. Way better than an essay, I think. But of course, it still meets the paragraph requirement for one, should the supes be breathing down my neck.”

Dean’s mouth folds into a small smile. “That’s, um… actually ingenious.”

Castiel returns the smile. It’s a nice smile. “Thank you. It’s been interesting to read about the Argentinians’ take on therapy. Apparently they have the most psychologists per capita in the world. Mental health is a big priority there.”

Dean nods. “That’s a lot,” he replies _very_ intelligently. It’s clear he’s not the Winchester that attended Stanford.

Castiel sets down the globe among the others and rounds his desk. Leaning against it with his arms bracing the ledge, he asks, “What brings you here, Dean?”

Dean licks his lips and glances behind him. 

“You can shut the door if you’d like,” Castiel offers.

Dean takes him up on that, turning the nob until it clicks in place. 

“Have a seat,” Castiel says, gesturing to the empty chair in the corner. Dean pulls it out before swinging it around so he’s sitting in it with his stomach against the cool metal back.

He wrings his hands a few times before he says it, “I, um… I don’t know if you heard, but I was… _bestowed the honor_ of teaching the sex education course this year.”

Castiel nods. “I did.”

“Yeah,” Dean continues, “well, a student of mine asked an… interesting question I don’t quite know all the answers to. I heard you’re the advisor for the school GSA and I was wondering—you know, since I don’t have, um—” _Dean’s chest is pressed against Lee’s. Their heartbeats sync as they come down from their respective orgasms._ “Experience… with, uh, homosexual sex—or lesbian sex, obviously… I mean, I watch it sometimes, but porn’s not exactly accurate, and I’m… rambling.”

Castiel doesn’t move an inch—he doesn’t even crack a smile. “You’d like accurate, up-to-date information on gay and lesbian sex.”

“Right,” Dean says, snapping his finger, “yeah, that’s… that’s it.”

Castiel nods once before he’s taking off his glasses and setting them on his desk behind him. “I mean, I’m happy to inform you; safe sex is a passion of mine. But that’s not the only reason you’re here, Dean, is it?”

Dean blinks a few times, matching the sudden flutter in his chest. “I—what?”

Castiel offers a smile then, but it’s gentle. “Dean, you can talk to me about anything. Whatever you’re comfortable with. I just want you to leave here tonight feeling a little less heavy.”

Feeling like a teenager again who got in trouble at school, Dean shifts his attention to the tile. “How did you know?” he asks after a long pause in a quiet voice.

“People think my job as a GSA advisor is just to encourage and foster an inclusive environment,” he explains, “Most of the time, I’m kids’ first point of contact—before their friends, their parents, their counselors. Sometimes they don’t even know what’s going on until they start talking. After a while though, you start to recognize a pattern. There’s a certain energy to these kids. You start to feel the weight they’re carrying. I can feel it in you, too. Hell, I probably would’ve felt it in myself had I not hidden behind a wife and kid.”

Dean’s head shoots up at that. “You’re—”

“A full-blown fruity pebble, yes,” he confirms.

“Oh, no, I didn’t—I didn’t mean it like—”

“Dean, it’s okay,” Castiel laughs before tilting his head, “but you—you aren’t okay.”

Biting his lip, Dean looks past Castiel at the magnet on the whiteboard. It says ‘Safe Space’ in bold white letters with the text wrapping around a rainbow. When he looks back at Castiel, he’s met with a soft, melatonin blue gaze, and for the first time, he feels comfortable. For the first time, flashbacks to that August night in Arizona when he was twenty-three don’t bombard him out of nowhere. It’s like Castiel’s eyes are a massive tidal wave, sweeping them all way.

“You know how they say a part of you always knows?” Dean starts, shaking his head with a scoff, “Not me. I must’ve done a good job at suppressing it all those years, because it didn’t come out until I was in my twenties. I was driving back from California. I dropped Sam off at Stanford for his second semester—that was before he dropped out of law school and pissed off Dad," he adds with a laugh. "He insisted on flying back, but I wanted to spend as much time with him as I could before he went back. He doesn’t know that.

I was passing through Colorado City when I stopped at a rest stop. I ran into an old friend and next thing I know, we’re giving each other handjobs in the front seat of my Impala, and it was… good. _Really_ good. It scared me how good it was.” Dean scoffs as he starts wringing his hands again. “So I just… buried it down. Or tried to, anyway. I didn’t bother keeping in contact with Lee after that.”

Dean looks back up to find Castiel unmoving from his standing position against his desk. He can’t decipher anything from his facial expression, and when neither of them speak for a good twenty seconds, Dean adds with a tiny, humorless chuckle, “No one knows that. Not even Sam. I wanna tell him, but it’s… I don’t know. Somehow it’s more intimidating when someone knows every facet about you. It’s like he’s just waiting for the balloon to pop.”

Castiel moves then, head nodding in understanding. “Oftentimes, it’s easier to come out to a complete stranger. There’s the emotional attachment missing that’s there with family and friends.”

“Well I’d say after that overshare you’re far from a stranger.”

Castiel smiles. “Oh believe me, I’ve heard it all.”

Dean blushes. “Oh, uh, my congratulations by the way to your son—child, offspring? Jack.”

“Jack goes by they/them pronouns,” Castiel clarifies. “And they prefer _sperm,_ which I won’t even get into,” he adds, shaking his head with a sigh.

“They,” Dean corrects, “are a funny kid.”

“They think so, yes.”

“Thank you, Castiel,” Dean says, pushing the chair aside as he stands up. He offers his hand out. “Really, I appreciate it.”

To Dean’s surprise, Castiel doesn’t reciprocate the handshake. “Please, call me Cas,” he insists. “And just so you know, there’s a rumor flying around in the teacher’s lounge that you’re a closeted hugger—and I’m a big proponent for hugs.”

Dean makes a mental note to talk to Garth after this… even if he’s right. Dean retracts his hand and extends his arms out instead, waiting for Cas to move in first before wrapping his arms around his back. Cas presses the lower half of his face into the crook of Dean’s neck and rests his hands firm around Dean’s waist, swiping soothingly with his thumbs. It’s been a long time since someone’s held him like this—since Lee in Arizona. 

“I’m really proud of you, Dean,” he says in a voice barely above a whisper. 

Balling his fists into the back of Cas’s blazer, Dean adopts a sharp intake of breath, inhaling Cas’s honey-scented musk. Somehow the back of his neck is sticky from Elmer’s glue, likely from the globe projects. He bites back a laugh—realizing in doing so that he has unshed tears in his eyes. “Thank you.”

Cas pulls back but keeps a hand on his left shoulder. “I mean it, if you need anything at all, you know where to find me.”

“Well, there are a couple more things,” Dean admits. Cas’s eyes perk up at that. “For one, I was wondering if you’d like to… accompany me… to Giovanni’s tomorrow night. I know Thursdays you get off around 2. I could meet you there after my last period, but I’d rather be in something more presentable than jean shorts, so let’s say around 5?”

Cas’s face twitches into a bigger, gummier smile. “Done. And I quite like the jean shorts, actually,” he adds with a wink that makes Dean’s knees almost give out right then and there. “And the second thing?”

“I’m still gonna need that rundown on gay sex.”

Cas’s smile fades completely. “Oh God, right!” he exclaims, swiveling around. He bends down and rummages underneath his desk, giving Dean the best view of his ass. “How long do you have?”

“For you, all night,” Dean replies before he even thinks about it.

Cas turns around, his face revealing a shade of red comparable to the red on his rainbow bowtie. “Okay. Have a seat again. Let me just grab my diagram.”


End file.
